Everyday Use By Alice Walker Analysis

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What defines you? The shade of your skin, your hometown, your accent, the makeup of your family, the gender you were born with, the intimate relationships you chose or your generation? Everyday Use" by Alice Walker is a short story based on the importance and dilemma of considering ones heritage. We have an excerpt from Walkers story that weaves the tale of a colored mother and the disparity of her two daughters. Dee, the eldest and seemingly self-centered, always wanted to be different, striving to escape the imagined insufficiency of her life. The younger sister Maggie evokes sympathy from the reader, showing qualities of being fragile, impacted deeply physically and emotionally by a past house fire and even perhaps mentally handicapped.…show more content…
The mother has a strong bond with Maggie but detects she doesn’t live up to Dees’ expectations. Dee and Mom clash in regards to two quilts that Dee’s grandmamma made from clothing that she and other family members wore in the past. Dee's confusion about her inheritance emerges in her attitude toward the quilts and other invaluable household objects. To Dee, heirlooms such as the benches and quilts are strictly aesthetic objects, never occurring to her that they are symbols of her heritage of immeasurable worth. Her family painstakingly created these objects at a time they could not afford to purchase them. Maggie wants to keep the quilts and use them every day and plans to make other quilts if these become worn out but Dee wants to display and preserve them. Her admiration for them seems to reflect a cultural tendency toward valuing homemade objects, rather than a sincere interest in her legacy. Dee argues that Maggie is "backward enough to put them to everyday use." (Walker 342) and determines her sister deserves scorn for this idea. The quilts actually do hold meaning and vicarious history for Dee, refusing to outwardly acknowledge this but finally admits she fears they will be ruined by everyday use. Here is the symbolism behind the title; the author is using the quilts, and the fate of those…show more content…
Mamas lack of education and Maggie’s sight deficit constructs the characters as deserving pity but still shows their resilience, “She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed by her” (Walker 338) and the families ability to adapt and survive on what they have. Mama's descriptions in the beginning are full of detail in regards to the dire financial situation but nonetheless demonstrating respect for her children and the items that have an "everyday use". As Mama described herself, she seemed strong and almost invincible and compares herself to a man, telling us she is a “large, big-boned woman with rough man-hands, "I was always better at a man's job" (Walker 338) she said, but seemed powerless and subservient as Dee came in the house and started taking her things. Those made Wangero (Dee) seem superficially stronger than Mama and that is why Maggie was so afraid of her. There was a great amount of respect lost for Mama as she let Wangero take advantage of her weakness. Near the end of the story Mama finally decided to tell Wangero no, “… snatched the quilts out of Wangeros hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap,… ‘Take one or two of the others”, the girls Mama told Dee (Walker 343). It takes a lot to say no to some people and you could tell that Mama had had
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